


A Very Different Sort of Love Song

by AstridContraMundum



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Inspired By Tumblr, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29733126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/pseuds/AstridContraMundum
Summary: “Now, come on, Morse,” Fancy said. “What records have you got?”Suddenly, it felt as if the tables had turned a little. Instead of appraising him haughtily over the top of his glass, Morse looked uncertain, slouching up against the counter.“Nothing you’d like,” he mumbled, with an air of apology.
Relationships: George Fancy/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 14
Kudos: 31





	A Very Different Sort of Love Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [odeion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/odeion/gifts).



George Fancy strode along the damp pavement, swinging a paper shopping bag by his side as he went, and then took the steps up to the door of the old brownstone two at a time.

He gave the door a few brisk raps with the back of his hand. With any luck, he had timed his visit just right, and Jim would just be finishing up work on dinner.

Usually, Jim managed to pull something off pretty good, actually. And even when he didn’t, even when he threw in the towel, he could always be relied upon to order a round of takeaway—Chinese or Indian or fish and chips. Either way, whenever he dropped by, Fancy knew he could count on a decent meal. Far better than the beans on toast that were the regular fare over at his place, anyway.

Fancy waited for what felt like a long time, but no one answered.

Maybe Jim had the telly on too loud for him to hear? Loud enough so that he could hear it in the kitchen?

Was there a match on tonight?

Fancy knocked again, and then, finally, he heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. But when the door opened, right away he could tell that something was wrong.

First of all, the burst of warm air that emanated from the house didn’t smell like food.

And secondly, it wasn’t Jim who answered the door, but rather Morse, looking distinctly disheveled. It was only half nine, but already Morse was in a vest and pajama bottoms, his hair a tousled mess. One side of his face even had some weird sort of marks on it, as if he had fallen asleep against one of the ribbed throw pillows on the couch.

“Morse,” Fancy said. “Didn’t expect to see you in on a Friday night.”

“I live here,” Morse said. “Where else would I be?”

“I dunno. Thought you might be out for a little Ooo-la-la.”

Morse’s mouth twisted in disapproval at that, his expression sullen.

“She has a name, you know,” he said loftily.

Fancy’s grin faded a little, and then he shrugged, preparing to toss out some sort of words of apology. He hadn’t realized that Morse was so serious about her.

A French photojournalist? Did he really imagine she was planning to stick around Oxford, on settling down with a copper?

But before Fancy could open his mouth, Morse’s overlarge eyes fell on the bag in his hand.

“What’s that?”

“Bottle of Scotch,” Fancy supplied. “I wanted to bring it over for Jim. I might have drunk the last of his last time I was ….”

But Morse didn’t seem to care for explanations. He simply took the bottle from his hand and turned back inside the house, not bothering to close the door behind him, leaving Fancy at an impasse.

He hadn’t invited him in, exactly, but he hadn’t closed the door behind him, either. Perhaps, for Morse, that was the equivalent of a warm welcome.

So Fancy followed him on inside and then down the hall to the cozy little galley kitchen, the one he had come to know, over the past few weeks, even better than the one in his own flat. A quick scan of the room revealed that all was tidy, if a bit cluttered: the spices stood in a smart row on a rack set against the familiar yellow and green wallpaper, Jim’s dark blue enamel cooking pots sat arranged by height on the wooden table, the dishtowel had been left neatly folded over the sink.

Fancy frowned, faintly.

It was clear that either Jim hadn’t begun dinner yet, or that Fancy had missed it all together.

Morse, in the meantime, headed straight for the sliver of counter wedged between the sink and the narrow stove and went to work on opening the bottle of Scotch.

“And anyway,” Morse murmured, his back turned toward him as he poured the amber liquor out into two short glasses, “She left me. Claudine.”

“Ouch,” Fancy said.

“Vietnam. Evidently, she prefers a war zone to my company.”

“Tough break,” Fancy said. “Been left for another bloke, but never for an actual war-torn country before.”

The thin blades of Morse’s shoulders slouched for a moment, like folded wings, and then he turned around and regarded him rather coldly, as if he didn’t appreciate the joke. But then, he sighed, and quirked a rueful smile, clinking the two glasses together before handing one off to him.

And then downed his in one rather impressive go.

“Where’s Jim, anyway?” Fancy asked.

“Out,” Morse said.

“Out where?” he asked, hopefully. “At the Jolly Rajah, picking up some takeaway?”

Morse turned ‘round and poured himself out another drink.

“No,” he said, again, his back turned to him, so that his voice sounded sort of faint, falling almost to a rough whisper.

“Out on a date. With Miss Thursday.”

And then he downed his second drink.

Fancy whistled, soft and low, appreciatively.

He had always thought that Claudine girl was just a passing phase to fill the empty spaces—that the girl who Morse really had it for was the old man’s daughter, Miss Thursday. He had noticed it right away, on one of his first days at Cowley, when he had come into the pub right when Morse was trying to ask Inspector Thursday something or other about her.

Morse had scowled at the interruption, had tried to get rid of him, to send him back to the nick on some pretext or another, but the old man had told him to stay, to go ahead and take his lunch.

Put Morse’s knickers in a right twist.

Fancy took a sip of his Scotch and shook his head in sympathy. 

“Man,” he said. “Your best friend taking out your dream girl. That’s rough.”

Morse looked startled at that.

“Jim’s not my best friend.”

“He isn’t?” Fancy asked.

“No,” Morse said.

A flicker of uncertainty passed over Morse’s face then, as if already he was having second thoughts about that, as if he needed to mull that one over ...

And little wonder. 

Fancy wasn’t sure what other friends Morse _had,_ really ....

“I honestly couldn’t care less,” Morse said, then. “He’s free to do whatever he likes, obviously. And so is she.”

And then he poured himself out another Scotch.

Fancy said nothing. He knew the script, knew the role well enough, that of the sympathetic sidekick. He had played the part many a time with a mate down at the pub.

The drinking buddy. The listening ear.

Not unlike that bloke Horatio, really.

For a moment, Fancy thought how he might drop the reference somehow, to let Morse know that he had looked that up, that he knew who that was now, but he couldn’t think of anything clever enough, anything with that Morse-like little twist.

In the meanwhile, Morse said nothing—simply stood there in his vest and pajama bottoms, leaning up against the counter, the austere and forbidding lines of his face utterly at odds with his otherwise bummy appearance.

Then, he seemed to soften his stance, the whole of his lanky frame settling into a sigh.

“I asked her to marry me, you know,” he said.

Fancy raised his eyebrows, surprised. 

“Oof. And she took up right away and left for Vietnam?”

“No,” Morse said, softly. “Not Claudine. Miss Thursday. Joan.”

“Really? When?”

“Long time ago now.”

“What did she say?”

Morse had just been getting ready to take another drink, but instead he lowered his glass and glowered at him over the rim.

Fancy supposed it _was_ rather a stupid question.

It must have been _no,_ obviously _._

Otherwise, he wouldn’t be here, and she wouldn’t be there, off dancing the night away with Jim.

“I don’t think she thought I was serious,” Morse said, cryptically. “I don’t think she thought that I meant it.”

“What? Like it was just a joke?”

“Something like that.”

Mmmmmm.

Damn.

Sounded like a real mess.

“Christ, Morse,” Fancy said. “How could she have thought that? When are you ever _not_ serious?”

“Thanks, George.”

Fancy realized too late that perhaps it hadn’t been the most sensitive thing to say.

If it made Morse feel better to think that Joan Thursday’s answer was a result of some sort of misunderstanding rather than a flat-out rejection, why should Fancy say otherwise? What was the point now?

Fancy shifted his weight where he stood, feeling a bit awkward, trying to think of some way to smooth it over.

Far be it for him to kick a man when he was down.

But there was no need.

A quirk of a smile was playing around Morse’s mouth as if he already understood—as if could read the dismay there on his face. And then he mock-saluted him, raising his glass in a silent toast, before taking another draught of Scotch.

“You know what you need?” Fancy said.

“What’s that?”

“A good break-up song.”

“A _what?”_

“Whenever I feel I’ve gotten the old heave-ho, or am just feeling, you know… sort of down, I listen to some real sad sort of love song. Just let myself wallow in it for a while. Puts it all in perspective. It’s a universal experience isn’t it? Being unlucky in love?”

Morse snorted at that.

“You ought to give Tarot card readings.”

“C’mon Morse,” Fancy cajoled. “It’s not like you’re alone.”

He startled at that.

“Aren’t I?”

“Course not. Now come on. What records have you got?”

Suddenly, it felt as if the tables had turned a little. Instead of appraising him haughtily over the top of his glass, Morse looked uncertain, slouching more heavily against the counter.

“Nothing you’d like,” he mumbled, with an air of apology.

“I don’t mind trying something new,” Fancy said. “Expanding my mind a little.”

Morse took another drink and laughed.

Weird sort of bloke, he was, Morse.

You make a joke, he’d get mad about it.

You try speaking seriously, he’d laugh. 

No wonder the poor sod never got on with anyone.

But once Morse had drained his glass, he paused, regarding him quietly, his big blue eyes like kaleidoscopes of pure color amidst the jumble of the mustard and pea-green wallpaper.

“All right,” he said. “If …. if you’re sure?”

“Course, I’m sure,” Fancy said.

*** 

No doubt about it.

Morse was in the doldrums, all right.

In the living room, on the oval coffee table nestled in the middle of the sofa and the two wooden-framed chairs, a cardboard carton of vanilla ice-cream had been left out, where it had half melted, both all over the table and onto the rug.

“Christ, Morse. Aren’t you going to clean this up?”

Morse looked at the mess for a moment, as if it were a matter worthy of long consideration.

“No,” he said.

Then, he collapsed onto the threadbare old couch, as if he simply didn’t have the strength, as if all of the light had drained right out of him.

“What’s the point of it?” Morse asked.

Fancy looked at him incredulously.

“It’s just vanilla, Morse. It’s chocolate that stains. Just get a damp dishcloth and press down on it. If you just press lightly, if you don’t rub it in, you’ll never know it happened.”

Morse eyed him then, with a trace of suspicion.

“What’s this supposed to be? Some sort of metaphor?”

“Huh?” Fancy asked.

“A metaphor. It’s when ….”

But Fancy cottoned on to his meaning and cut him off.

“I _know_ what a metaphor is, Morse.”

  
He hadn’t meant anything all that deep by it really, other than it seemed prudent not to risk it, annoying Jim.

But, eh, what the hell.

That was the way Morse’s head worked, evidently.

Must be kind of exhausting.

“Yes, Morse,” Fancy said. “It’s a metaphor. Always darkest before the dawn. Right?”

“Mmmmm,” Morse said.

But still, he made no move to get up.

“Tell you what. You go pick out a record, and I’ll just get a cloth from the kitchen, all right?” Fancy said, trying to break him out of his reverie. “And anyway…”

“What?”

Fancy nodded toward the carton.

“Do you mind if I have the rest of that?”

Morse snorted.

“It certainly doesn’t look very appetizing, does it?”

“I always like it a bit melted,” Fancy said.

Morse looked surprised for a moment and then gazed at him thoughtfully, as if he might be reading something more into those words, too, as if he thought that Fancy was possessed of some previously unseen brilliance.

Vaguely, Fancy wondered what it was that he had said without meaning to say, but, whatever it was, it worked at treat, because, slowly, as if it pained him to do so, Morse unpeeled himself from the couch.

***

It wasn’t much like any sort of love song Fancy had ever heard before. But then again, his head _was_ buzzing a bit—both from the sugar rush of having finished off half a carton of ice cream and by the copious amounts of Scotch he’d downed.

Morse kept trying to explain the plot, speaking in murmurs soft and low so as not to interrupt the flow of the music, but it sounded sort of bonkers, really.

It was all about Tristan, who was taking a girl called Isolde on a ship to Cornwall, to marry his uncle.

But it turns out, they had this whole wild backstory together. It turns out—in some sort of unexplained twist—that they had met before, when Tristan had been wounded in a battle and had sent for a healer.

“It was Isolde who came to his aid,” Morse said. “But when she learned that Tristan had slain her fiancé in the battle, she determined to kill him.”

“Huh?” Fancy said.

That went South quick.

“I said to wallow, Morse, not to marinate.” 

“Mmmmmm?”

“Never mind.”

It was clear that Morse was lost to the music, already following along in his head to the next verse.

“But then their eyes met,” he said, “and she was so struck by him, that she couldn’t bring herself to do it.”

“Oh.”

Fancy settled back into the couch and closed his eyes, listening to the swell of the notes overlaid with Morse’s murmured words. And he was on the seas, and all was rising and soaring, and then….

“And then Isolde determined to kill him, after all. And to kill herself, too,” Morse said. “But instead of poison, she accidently dosed the both of them with a love potion.”

_“What?”_

Fancy found himself looking at Morse as if he had never seen him before.

If this had been on a programme he and Jim had been watching on the telly, he was sure Morse would have been glaring at the screen in such a way as to make the whole thing spontaneously combust.

Morse huffed a low laugh, smiling wanly. It was a soft and husky sound, one that seemed to be half admonishment for his outburst, for having broken the spell, and half apologetic, as if he, too, realized how it all sounded—like a brand of melodrama that Fancy never would have imagined Morse would go in for.

But, yet, here he was, a trace of a fond smile playing at the corners of his lips, those fractious parentheses that bracketed his wide mouth entirely smoothed over, the taut muscles of his stubborn jaw completely at rest.

It was an entirely different Morse than the one he knew from the nick sinking deep into the cushions beside him. Thoughts of love potions and of motiveless changes of the heart—ideas that he never would have entertained on a case—were suddenly allowable.

Likewise, his lanky frame—always so restless as he shifted in his chair or compulsively clicked a pen by his ear—seemed to drape itself over the cushions like a bolt of silk, all easy and pliant, all of his angular lines softened, his typical frown of concentration replaced with a faint light that illuminated his face almost like some sort of rapture.

He was just like a puddle of melted ice cream.

Fancy frowned for a moment, considering him.

It must not be the plot, but some element in the music itself, something in the swell of the notes that infused that look of near-ecstasy in Morse’s face.

Because he had it coming off him in spades, really.

Fancy closed his eyes and leaned back further into the depths of the rough couch, trying to hear what Morse heard there, allowing the rise and fall of the music—mingled with the gentle rise and fall of Morse’s breath stirring warmly in his ear—to take him where it would, to guide him along.

And, as he stilled, as he let his thoughts slowly unravel, he found that he _could_ feel it, somehow—in the raw emotion of the voices, in those long and reverberating vowels, in that one oddly discordant series of notes that seemed to repeat throughout the piece— even if didn’t understand the words.

There was something stirring there in those off-center notes, in that odd atonality, something reaching and yearning, but never quite resolving, something sweetly out of place.

Something much like Morse himself.

Maybe that, then, was what Morse saw in the stuff.

Maybe it helped him to feel all the things he didn’t quite know how to feel.

Or, rather, to recognize all of the things that he _did_ feel, all too keenly, but didn’t quite know how to express.

All the while, Morse’s murmured words were growing fainter and fainter, drifting off until they were ghosting along just at the edge of his perception, even as Fancy’s eyes were growing heavier, falling softly closed.

And still the music swelled on, falling and crashing like the waves on the shore back home in Devon. And it was apropos, really, that such music, resounding like an ocean, should be accompanied by Morse’s words, by that low and rounded voice, so deeply blue.

Blue, that was it.

If Morse’s voice were a color, it would be blue ….

_Are you mine?_

_With me once more?_

_Dare I hold you?_

_Can I believe it?_

_Never dreamt of._

_Never dreamt of …._

_Never dreamt …._

The first thing that Fancy was aware of was a certain haziness, a heaviness, pressing up against him, pressing him back into the couch, countered by something incredibly soft, brushing just under his nose.

He opened his eyes, and blinked, but found that he could not move, weighed down as he was by the warmth of it, by something like a heavy blanket, only rather more angular.

He blinked again, muzzily, and then cast his gaze down, and realized that that warm weight was Morse, who had fallen asleep half-sprawled across his chest.

He was actually sort of heavy, for not that huge of a bloke, his bony shoulder sharp where it dug up against Fancy’s ribs.

It should have been uncomfortable. But it felt all right, really.

Even better than all right, as he laid back, wrapped in warmth, with Morse’s edges and corners all unwound against him. With that mess of auburn waves, soft as feathers and smelling of old paper, brushing against his face.

He felt an odd glow of happiness in that warmth, a surge of quiet pride welling in his chest.

It wasn’t unlike how he had felt when his sister’s grumpy old ginger cat, ignoring all the others, deigned to sit in his lap.

That feeling of being singled out.

Of being chosen.

Fancy snuggled further down onto the couch, and Morse rolled right along with him, so that somehow they seemed to fit together even more seamlessly, inch by inch by inch.

He glanced over to the small table to where Morse’s box record player sat, the needle slowly revolving in humming silence around the round red label of the album. He would have liked to get up and flip the record—for the night, for this new feeling, to go on and on—but he didn’t want to move from where he was.

As it was, his movements must have partially woken Morse, because he stirred a little, the waves of his hair tickling him a bit under his nose.

“George?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you follow that? I might have missed a part.”

“That’s all right,” Fancy said. “I get it.”

Morse seemed to relax at that—relieved that he had not fallen down on the job—and then, he burrowed his head back against his shirt, his breathing evening once more.

“Oh,” he mumbled. “Sorry. You should have told me. I didn’t know you knew German.”

Fancy huffed a laugh.

“I was speaking metaphorically.”

“Mmmmm?” Morse hummed.

Fancy wasn’t sure if Morse had cottoned on to the fact that he was joking, but that was all right.

He was off in his own world, anyway, as close as his heartbeat and at the same time far away, slurring the lyrics to himself.

_“What I can see so bright and clear,_

_do not let it escape you!_

_Can you not hear me?_

_Can you not hear me?_

Fancy grinned. The music had long since stopped, but Morse must have known the song so well that it was still playing on, somewhere in his head.

_Are you still there?_

_The ship? The ship?_

_Isolde’s ship?_

Morse straightened one bent arm and looped it so that it was firmly encircling his waist, allowing Fancy to feel that it was all right, really, to go ahead and nuzzle his face into those tempting waves, to breathe in that scent of old paper and dust.

It was a very different sort of love song, this opera stuff.

One he had not expected to understand.

But, somehow, it was beginning to grow on him.

Maybe Morse wouldn’t mind if he came by again sometime, so that he could hear the rest.

He would like to find out how the story ended—to hear how it was that Tristan and Isolde found their happy ending.


End file.
